In John’s poem, it is about the lovers getting on well together and they are so great like the world. ‘Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we.’ The speaker objects to the sun shining into the bedroom because he says that the sun cannot disturb him and his lover having love. They always have to be together. The clever argument is that the sun has to shine over half the world, at any given time. When he says this, ‘This bed thy the center is, these walls thy sphere.’ He is trying to say, the bed is in the center of the world.
The tone of the poems will differ from one another. Some of them are sad, happy, witty and even cheeky. In Andrew Marvell’s poem (to his coy mistress), the tone changes in line 21, ‘But at my back I always hear’. He starts talking about something new as he mentions the word, but. Again, in line 33 the tone changes, ‘Now, therefore, while the youthful hue’.
In Sonnet (Elizabeth Browning), the tone changes in line 9, ‘I love thee with the passion put to use’. The tone changes from present to past. It is a very genuine tone.
William Shakespeare’s poem is very cynical and light-hearted, because although they lie to each other, they are still happy at the end of the day.
Each poet has decided to write in a particular style. In sonnet (Michael Drayton) he changes the subject in the last two lines, ‘Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, From death to life thou might’st him yet recover.’ During the poem he pretends that he doesn’t really care if they break up, but then he says we might recover and meet again as she believes in life after death.
In sonnet 138 (William Shakespeare) he uses a pun. This is a word with 2 meanings. He uses the word lie, as in to sleep or rest, or not to tell the truth. ‘Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be.
In Andrew Marvell’s poem he tends to change the tense a lot of the times, as I have already explained above.
Elizabeth also changes the tense in her poem from present to past. The poet makes use of repetition in this poem by continuously saying, ‘I love thee.’
John Donne uses colloquial style. An example of this is, ‘Busy old fool,’ or ‘Unruly Sun.’
There is a wide range of imagery being used in these poems. In sonnet 138, you get the image that he is sleeping with his lover in bed. They are always happy even when they lie as they eventually get over it. ‘Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be.
The poem, Sonnet, by Browning, gives you the image that every day and night, she loves him freely and that they get o along very well together. ‘I love thee to the level of every day’s.’
Michel Drayton says, ‘When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death.’ This gives us the image that you can see the love dying on the bed.
In line 42 of Andrew Marvell’s poem it says, ‘Our sweetness, up into one ball.’ This quote gives us a very strong image about the lovers that they are like joining forces together. The poet makes dry jokes about the grave such as, ‘The grave’s a fine and private place.’
In line 21 of The Sun Rising, it quotes, ‘She’s all the States, and all Princes, I.’ This is trying to say that she is the whole world.
The least effective poem, in my opinion, is Sonnet by Michael Drayton. I don’t really enjoy this poem as much as I did with the others. One of the main reasons for this is because all the others are about happiness; most of the lovers are getting on well together, whereas here they are trying to blackmail each other. There is also very little detail compared to the others. For example it doesn’t give you a lot of imagery.
The most effective poem, in my opinion, is To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell. I really enjoy this poem as it gives you plenty of detail and you can easily get into the poem and understand what is happening. The tone changes twice in lines 21 and 33. You can see how much they love each other as it says, in line 42, ‘Our sweetness, up into one ball.’ This clearly shows you that they are getting on very well together and are enjoying it. This quote gives you an image of how they are getting long with each other.
